SPRING PRACTICE PERIOD: Stories from the Lotus Sutra

Dogen-Zenji so cherished the Lotus Sutra that he actually carved a selection of it into his door. This, the core text of not only Zen but the whole of Mahayana Buddhism, has never lost its appeal among practitioners of the Way. Join us for our SPRING PRACTICE PERIOD: Stories From the Lotus Sutra led by Sensei Joshin Byrnes, Sensei Genzan Quennell

True Nourishment from the Boundless Field

Instructor(s):
Wendy Johnson

“I am often most alert and settled in the garden when I am working hard, hip deep in a succulent snarl of spring weeds. My mind and body drop away then, far below wild radish and bull thistle, and I live in the rhythmic pulse of the long green throat of my work.” _--Wendy Johnson

Come garden with mindfulness at Upaya this June. Organic gardening mentor, Buddhist teacher and author of Gardening at the Dragon’s Gate, Wendy Johnson joins Sensei Beate Genko Stolte for this unique retreat. During this hands-on retreat we will dig deep into the soil and heart of Upaya and our own personal wilderness.

An ordained lay dharma teacher, Wendy has practiced Zen meditation for thirty-five years and led meditation retreats nationwide for nearly two decades. She is one of the founders of the Green Gulch Organic Farm and Garden Program at the San Francisco Zen Center, and a College of Marin instructor in the Environmental Landscape program at Indian Valley Organic Farm and Garden.

Wendy says, “Gardening is to know the heart and mind of your place, and in so doing, to know your own heart and mind. One of the great things about having been encouraged and enabled to practice Zen meditation and organic gardening is a real call to give back, to offer my love and experience in both those realms.”

At Upaya we work on a daily basis to preserve our natural resources for future generations. We grow many of the fruits, vegetables and herbs used in our kitchen, compost our food waste and limit water use wherever possible. During this retreat, in recognition of Upaya’s ongoing commitment to local food sustainability, Sensei Beate Genko Stolte will hold a ceremony to celebrate our intimate relationship with the earth that sustains us. She will also lead mediation periods for participants.

Wendy will give the dharma talk at 5:30pm Wednesday June 1st. Please consider extending your stay at Upaya or in Santa Fe to join us for the talk. Dharma talks are open to the public and we encourage dana to the teachers.

Sample Schedule

More about the instructors:

Wendy Johnson is a Buddhist meditation teacher and organic gardening mentor who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. Wendy has been practicing Zen meditation for thirty-five years and has led meditation retreats nationwide since 1992 as an ordained lay dharma teacher in the traditions of Vietnamese teacher Thich Nhat Hanh and the San Francisco Zen Center. Wendy is one of the founders of the organic Farm and Garden Program at Green Gulch Farm Zen Center in Marin County, where she lived with her family from 1975 to 2000. She has been teaching gardening and environmental education to the public since the early 1980s.

In 2000 Wendy and her husband, Peter Rudnick, received the annual Sustainable Agriculture Award from the National Ecological Farming Association. Since 1995 Wendy has written a quarterly column, “On Gardening,” for Tricycle Magazine, a Buddhist Review. She was honored in The Best Science and Nature Writing 2000, published by Houghton Mifflin. Wendy is a mentor and advisor to the Edible Schoolyard program of the Chez Panisse Foundation, a project that she has been involved in since in its inception in 1995. This is her first book.